Ever since Google Glass “graduated” from Google X Labs, it seems we can’t write an article about the device without people proclaiming it’s dead. It’s not. Google is working on it. They’ve taken it private. Tony Fadell wants to take the early work done by the excellent team at Google and make sure he gets it just right, just like he did for Nest and the iPod, and he doesn’t want to show it until it’s ready.
“It is a big and very fundamental platform for Google,” Schmidt said. “We ended the Explorer program and the press conflated this into us canceling the whole project, which isn’t true. Google is about taking risks and there’s nothing about adjusting Glass that suggests we’re ending it.”
This is a thing. A real thing. A thing that’s happening. It might not be here as soon as we’d liked, but it’s not something Google is sweeping under the rug.
If you’re already an Explorer with the latest publicly-released unit, enjoy it. Stop obsessing and complaining over a new version that you won’t even be able to see until Google is ready to put them up for sale.
It’s OK to be concerned (and even angry) about the ,500 prototype you bought that will eventually be obsoleted, and we certainly do hope those folks are hooked up with some sort of upgrade path once the consumer version is ready, but no amount of petitioning and rioting will change Google’s stance on the future development of Glass if they haven’t already changed it.
Beyond that, you knew what you were getting into. You knew Glass was still in the exploratory and platform-building phases and Google only wanted people who truly understood that to use it, which is why they asked you to pay ,500 for a piece of kit that likely didn’t take nearly as much money to manufacture.
If Glass were truly dead, don’t you think they’d tell us just as they’ve done countless times in the past when they retired a lot of their other products? Sit back, relax, and let Google do their thing.
We now know pretty much everything there is to know about the Samsung Galaxy S6. The specs, the features, the price… it’s all on the table. With the device going on sale April 1st and launching April 10th, people are debating whether it’ll be their next phone and one limiting factor could be the disappearance of a key Galaxy S5 feature that didn’t make its way to the new S6: water resistance.
There is no doubt that the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge are the sexiest Galaxy devices yet. But to achieve said sexiness, Samsung made compromises in areas they were previously adamant:
The battery is not removable
There is no expandable memory card slot
The device is not water resistant
When we reviewed the Samsung Galaxy S5, water resistance was one of my favorite new features. After only one year, it’s gone. One could speculate why water resistance was removed, make various comparisons to Apple, and discuss the technological difficulties in engineering such a product, but for the sake of this article- let’s not.
Maybe, just maybe, Samsung didn’t make the Galaxy S6 waterproof because they expect another product will eventually fill those shoes… the Samsung Galaxy S6 Active.
The device slightly dumbed down the specs; for example, in exchange for getting an IP67 water resistant device you also get a chunkier, heavier phone with hardware buttons and an 8MP camera instead of a 13MP camera.
Whatever the case may be it seems the Active brand performed well enough to live on as Samsung released its sequel the following year.
Galaxy S5
Things got a bit more awkward when Samsung announced the Samsung Galaxy S5 Active. You see, they already had the Samsung Galaxy S5 and had accomplished the feat of making it IP67 water resistant.
We reviewed the S5 and found water resistance to be one of the best new additions. There wouldn’t be any need for the S5 Active now because Samsung had solved the problem by making its flagship phone waterproof! Right!? Right? Wrong…
Galaxy S5 Active
Despite having a IP67 water resistant flagship in the Galaxy S5, Samsung pushed forward and announced the Samsung Galaxy S5 Active.
Once again, they slightly dumbed down the specs, made it chunkier with more rugged material, and added some extra Ingress protection. Both the S5 and S5 Active were IP67 water resistant, but only the S5 Active enjoyed drop resistance (up to 4 feet), dust, temperature, and humidity resistance. Oh… and it looked a lot crazier.
Speaking of crazy designs, Samsung’s newest generation of flagship devices is quite the divergence from their typical hardware.
Galaxy S6
It wouldn’t be wrong to call the Galaxy S6 a fish out of water. The S4 was not water resistant. The S5 was water resistant. The S6 is not water resistant. Flip. Flop. Flip.
It seems Samsung focused their time and energy making the Galaxy S6 the most premium feeling device possible. No removable battery. No external storage. No problem. Because one look at the S6 and S6 Edge and you’d fall in love. At least that’s how I assume Samsung’s internal team approached the matter.
Some people are freaking out over the lack of water resistance but Samsung made a clear decision to focus more on being premium. And let’s not forget the added accuracy of the fingerprint sensor which probably wouldn’t do so well underwater.
But maybe, just maybe, there is more to the madness than meets the eye.
Galaxy S6 Active?
Samsung has not confirmed or denied the future existence of a new phone in their “Active” series, but considering they released a ruggedized version of an already waterproof phone (the S5), it seems the company is hellbent on making “Active” devices. To see a Galaxy S6 Active would not be a surprise and to the contrary, it’s something you should expect.
If you’re one of the people “freaking out” consider this the part where we shake some sense into you: if you want a waterproof Galaxy S6, simply wait for the company to announce the S6 Active… we’re pretty sure it’ll come eventually.
However, I believe the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Active will have more difference between them than their sibling counterparts. Whereas in the past the S4 Active and S5 Active were merely ruggedized version of almost the same device, Samsung now has the opportunity to let the S5 Active stand out.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: there is no way Samsung will create a Galaxy S6 Edge Active. The engineering would be impossible and the final product would be too expensive. Don’t get your hopes up. It isn’t happening.
Whatever the case may be, Samsung may have created a golden sales opportunity by making this decision. It makes the features/benefits much more clear to consumers and sales people, giving the marketing team specific issues to target when reaching their target market with the (one) perfect product that fits their needs.
So what is that one perfect product…
What will the S6 Active be?
This is purely speculation and I invite you to voice your opinion in the poll below, but I think this is the perfect opportunity for Samsung to please two different parties:
Galaxy S6 Active gets plastic with removable battery.
Whereas in the past Samsung had two very similar products with one primary differentiating factor, the new Galaxy S6 Active would be a completely different product than the Galaxy S6 and offer an entirely different set of features and benefits from a hardware perspective.
I’d be really excited to see the Galaxy S6 Active simply be the natural progression of the previous Galaxy S5, sticking with the plastic and Ingress protection and continuing to add ruggedized features. Nobody knows for sure, but it’s always fun to speculate.
The bottom line is this: if you want a waterproof Galaxy S6 you don’t have to cry over spilled milk… the Galaxy S6 Active will likely be coming. Exactly what that means is anybody’s guess, but if you stay glued to Phandroid, we’ll let you know exactly what it means when the universe reveals to us these secrets.
OnePlus really threw us for a loop. They’ve been teasing a “game-changing” announcement for a couple of weeks now. “Start a new game.” “For the fun of it.” “You’re in control.” They even used a photo of a pair of hands seemingly holding an invisible gaming controller for that last one.
Surely this can be nothing other than a gaming console, right? Wrong — well, wrong according to OnePlus’s Carl Pei, anyway. The company nonchalantly confirmed in an Ask Me Anything session on reddit that they’d be revealing a gaming drone dubbed the DR-1. Carl Pei even posted a convincing branding image for the thing:
But even though this information is coming from the horse’s mouth, we’re going to take this one with a grain of salt for a few different reasons.
We’re dangerously close to April Fools day.
We’ve never seen a company tease an announcement and then “leak” their own information.
It’s OnePlus.
It’s OnePlus.
Those last couple of points weren’t duplicated in err — this company’s marketing tactics have been questionable since their conception, and we wouldn’t put anything past them. We’re electing to wait until that April-scheduled announcement before we put all our eggs into the “drone” basket, but this is the story they’re dishing out in the interim. You guys believe them?
As the title suggests, the Pokemon Jukebox is little more than a music player that will allow you to play various Pokemon tunes… and that’s about it. Users can compile their favorite Pokemon tracks into playlists for easy listening on the go, adding sound effects on demand for added nostalgia.
While Pokemon Jukebox is free to download in the in the Play Store, most tracks will run you 99 cents with medleys running about . There is a free limited time preview for most tracks taking place over the next 24 hours, so it’s got that going for it. We can’t help but shake the feeling that is simply the one of the most blatant money grabs we’ve ever seen on Android in quite sometime. Download link provided below if you want to check it out for yourself.
Seriously, HTC, this is just getting ridiculous. The Taiwanese company has revealed another new smartphone as part of 2015’s One lineup. It’s the HTC One ME, and just like the HTC One E9++ and HTC One M9+, it outclasses HTC’s supposed “flagship” HTC One M9 in every way.
It does so with a 5.2-inch 2560 x 1440 display, 3GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a front-facing UltraPixel camera, a fingerprint scanner and 2,840mAh battery. The only thing you could knock it for is using MediaTek’s octa-core Helio X10 chipset over something from the Snapdragon family, but MediaTek chipsets aren’t even bad these days.
Like many of the other variants, this one is only slated for a launch in China right now, which is fascinating considering that market now has access to 3 of HTC’s 2015 devices while most others only have the HTC One M9.
